How many times have you found yourself looking at some text you have URL encoded only to be unsure what those percentage signs represent? I have been developing for the web for years but the life of me I can never remember what all the URL encoding conversions become. So I never remember what an encoded question mark looks like or the encoded equal sign.

Not to mention the fact that Base64 is inherently illegible!

What I have always wanted was a quick way to look at types so that I can quickly understand what it was transformed from or to.

The Visual Studio team really impressed me with the DataTable Visualizer released with 17.4, but in the latest preview release I see the Debugger team built new experiences with the Text Visualizer that include:

  • Base64 Encode
  • Base64 Decode
  • URL Encode
  • URL Decode
  • JWT Decode

Now when I am presented with URL encoded text, I am just a couple clicks from decoding it to something I understand:

Animated gif of visual studio with a text visualizer decoding a url.

This is infinitely more helpful JWT and Base64 decoding. Love it!



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